Centerblue.org

The GOP wasted no time yesterday in attempting to use a federal judge’s injunction against unconstitutional wireless surveillance to club Democrats as being “soft” on national security. A new ad rolled out yesterday: “Democrats say they want to talk about national security and the war on terror . . . while terrorists are watching,” it warned ominously. Bush’s claimed in his angry comments that opponents of the decision simply don’t understand the world we live in.

The GOP insists that any questioning of King George’s policies in any way, shape, or form whatsoever is kowtowing to terrorists. It insists that any attempt to criticize the gross unconstitutionality of his edicts and his flouting of the laws, or even ask for the barest shreds of due process, means that we’re cheering the terrorists on to commit new atrocities like 9/11.

Nobody puts these ridiculous arguments in their place more eloquently than Judge Taylor, who issued the ruling:

“It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights…There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent powers’ must derive from that Constitution.”

What’s on voters’ minds these days is Iraq rather than national security. As the article points out, Republicans have done such a good job connecting national security to the war in Iraq (where no connection really exists) that this strategy is blowing up in their faces–because any mention of national security such as in the context of this ruling immediately reminds voters of the complete disaster in Iraq. That just makes them all the angrier at what’s going on over there, motivating them to throw the GOP out in November.

Brilliant!

That boomerang effect is causing some GOP’ers to “cut and run” on Iraq. Chris Shays, a Republican House incumbent in Connecticut, is quoted as now wanting a timeframe for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Michael Fitzpatrick, a GOP House incumbent from Michigan, distances himself from Bush’s “mistakes” and turns his back on Bush’s Iraq policies in a letter to constituents.

There’s nothing sweeter in politics than to watch the opposition destroy itself with the same club it has used against its opponent.

A US federal judge in Detroit has ruled that the NSA’s domestic wiretapping program is unconstitutional, and issed an injunction to stop it immediately.

While the decision is not yet available, I suspect the judge found the program to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements on wiretaps, the lack of which constitute an unreasonable search and seizure.

The Bush order to permit warrantless wiretapping surveillance was a gross violation of well-established precedent protecting Americans from a snooping federal government. If the president really requires a wiretap that is so urgent for the sake of national security that he doesn’t have time to go through the process of getting a warrant he has the option of doing the wiretap so long as he subsequently submits the warrant request to the FISA court. Giving Bush carte blanche authority to issue wiretap orders without the possibility of having the decision reviewed by any judge for probable cause is a power-grabbing usurpation of liberty that bears no relationship to his ability to protect the US from terrorist attack.

The president is charged with enforcing the laws, not wiping his ass with them. I’m glad the federal judge was brave enough to render this decision.

There seems to be no end to the unilateral nature of Bush’s infringements on civil liberties.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales revealed today that Bush personally blocked a probe of the NSA eavesdropping program conducted by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

When you have a Chief Executive who personally nixes investigations into the constitutionality of his own orders, that is not a president. What you have instead is a monarch who thinks himself above the law.